


lights will guide you home (and i will try to fix you)

by 00hjs



Series: just stray kids things [9]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-21 21:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16584737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/00hjs/pseuds/00hjs
Summary: maybe in some weird, unnatural, twisted way, felix's fucked up and jisung's fucked up will clash and cancel out.orthe love story of two messes in which felix meets jisung and maybe their world is a whole entire mess, but maybe they can try to fix each other.(typos what typos i definitely didn’t find like 4439 just now)





	lights will guide you home (and i will try to fix you)

felix can't remember the last time he fell asleep to quiet. 

tonight, it's to the garbled yelling downstairs and the slamming of the front door loud enough to rattle the alarm clock sitting on felix's nightstand. he can almost feel the vibrations as something shatters directly below his room. 

he watches the clock tick the seconds by until finally, the words turn to hushed whispers and the sound of broken glass being swept up is the only evidence of an inconvenience. it's only then that felix lets the ticking of the clock lull him to sleep, two hours before he has to wake up again. 

felix tries his best to avoid his mother in the morning. he gets up an hour earlier than he should have to and takes as little time as possible to shove his limbs into un-ironed clothes and sling his book laden bag over his shoulder. sometimes, he'll be lucky enough to leave the house before either of his parents wake up. today, he's not. 

the kitchen light is on and the sound of a knife against a chopping board rings in his ears as he walks down the hallway, and felix winces. he steps into the kitchen and his mother turns around, a faint smile playing at her lips. felix looks down almost immediately. her lip is cut and bleeding and there's an obvious bruise stapled to her cheekbone, vibrantly purple against her pale skin. 

"i made breakfast." she sounds almost apologetic.

"i'm not hungry." felix ducks out of her way and closes the front door behind him. 

as he walks, he's the tiniest bit guilty. guilt, however, isn't enough to overcome the anger that's still boiling in his stomach. 

it's cold outside. the wind pinpricks his face and leaves his ears bright red, and his fingers are halfway numb by the time he reaches the school parking lot. he keeps his eyes down and on the floor as he moves through the halls, brushing past people who are chattering to one another excitedly so he can dump everything in his bag into his locker. 

"hey, lix!" 

hyunjin shows up from somewhere, materializing up next to his locker with a grin on his face and the edges of his eyes crinkling up. felix twists up the corners of his lips and empties his bag into his locker, picking out only the biology textbook he needs. it's an old tattered book, dark green and the edges of the pages are yellowing. it does its job, though, even if felix has to read through the ink stains every once in a while. 

"are you coming to practice today?"

hyunjin slings an arm around felix's shoulders as they walk down the hall. felix knows hyunjin's classroom is on the other side of the building, but he doesn't mention it. it's hyunjin's choice. 

"there's practice today?" 

hyunjin nods, pulling out his phone to check the time. 

"game on wednesday, so we have practice today and tomorrow. you better come or coach might actually kick you off the team." 

felix waves hyunjin off as he reaches his classroom. 

"yeah. go away." he mumbles as he pulls open the door gently. hyunjin giggles and pats his shoulder once before jogging off down the hallway. 

his first three classes pass by in a blur, but it's nothing unusual. he's got a faint idea about what they'd been talking about in his math class, but he'll either have to binge study before the test or flunk it. lately, he's been going a lot towards option two. 

he spends his lunch scribbling down absolute nonsense for the review questions he hadn't even looked at the night before. seungmin leans over and reads his work, a grimace on his face. 

"dude, none of the above isn't even one of the choices." he points to an answer which felix has written, and felix shrugs. 

he doesn't quite care. the only reason he's even doing the work somewhat is because he has to keep above a c in all of his classes or he'll be kicked off the sports teams. looking at it now, though, felix isn't sure if that's such a bad idea anymore. 

the rest of the day drags on slowly, and it's almost like the clock starts moving in slow motion as two-thirty drags nearer and nearer. it does, though, and sooner than he can think felix finds himself on the field with his beat up black and white cleats and a rush of wind pushing him towards the ball. it makes him forget, for a while, when he's passing the ball to his drill partner and screaming when it rolls fourteen feet past where it's supposed to go. 

it's when the sun starts to set and their only source of light is the giant lamps set up around the edges of the field that coach calls end of practice with the screech of his whistle. 

"good work today. practice is cancelled tomorrow since there's supposed to be a freak storm, but be on the field by four on wednesday." 

he stares felix down when he says it, so felix just casts his eyes towards the floor and shrugs. maybe he's the least bit notorious for being late and showing up after the first quarter. 

hyunjin sidles up next to him when he's pulling off his cleats and shoving them in his sports bag. 

"good job, you showed up!" he laughs, and felix punches him in the shoulder. it's gentle, though, and hyunjin's being overdramatic because he falls onto his side and whines about how he's drastically injured. 

"hey felix," hyunjin says as they walk across the field, "stay at mine tonight." 

felix shudders as another gust of wind brings ice through his jersey and nods. he'll take the subway to hyunjin's house. it's not like his parents will care anyways. bitterly, felix thinks that even if his father did care, he'd be either too drunk or too high to realize that he did. 

"swipe me in?" he asks when hyunjin pulls out his metro card. he groans and stamps felix's foot, hard. 

"i told you to bring it with you, loser." he grumbles, but he doesn't hesitate swiping felix in, either. they're a half hour early, though, and the subway smells like gasoline and rotting food. it never gets better, but you get used to the smell after a while. 

"c'mon. i wanna buy food." hyunjin decides, pulling felix along to the twenty-four hour convenience store. it's been a second home to felix ever since he's been little. hyunjin's parents used to take him there all the time and soon enough, felix had started tagging along. now, it's routine to stop by whenever felix goes home with hyunjin. it is, he realizes, more often than he'd like to admit. 

the convenience store is nothing special. the same one, brightly lit with artificial lights and the same rows and racks of over the counter medicine and line of freezers extending along the back of the store. hyunjin makes a beeline for the fried snacks, even though they both know they'd made a pact to stop eating them. he ends up with some honey barbecue potato skins or something that felix doesn't quite have the time to read. he picks up a packet of jelly candy, even though he knows hyunjin will end up eating half of it on the ride home anyways. 

he uses the last of his loose change to pay for the pack of candy while hyunjin uses some coupon he'd gotten from buying a hundred bottles of coke zero. the doors to the train are just opening by the time they re-enter the station and they sprint all the way over, joining the small crowd of people getting onto the bus. the ride is silent save for hyunjin crunching through his bag of potato skins. it's not a suffocating silence, though. more like a warped one, a layer between just the two of them and time. 

hyunjin's house is just as warm and welcoming as ever. his dog is used to felix now, and kkami jumps onto him with a newfound vigor every time he enters the house. today, he settles for biting at felix's ankles until he reaches down to give the puppy attention. 

"hello, felix. staying the night?" mrs. hwang smiles warmly at him from where she's flipping through a book, one of her hands coated in flour. 

felix smiles back and nods. she tries to pull hyunjin into a hug, but hyunjin squeals and tries to duck away and ends up with a face full of flour and a fit of laughter. 

felix feels something inside him crumple up as he watches mrs. hwang and her son laugh with each other, and he turns away, settling for kicking his shoes off in the corner of the laundry room and dropping his sports bag on top of them. 

"go take a shower," mrs. hwang laughs, "the both of you stink. dinner will be ready when you're done." 

hyunjin decides to race felix to the showers even though he knows felix hates showering after someone else and locks himself in the bathroom first. 

felix kicks the bottom of the door with a groan and hyunjin giggles from somewhere in the bathroom as the shower water turns on. 

his phone lights up with call after call all night, even long after hyunjin's turned out the lights and turned over on his side of the bed, fast asleep. text message after text message with capital letters and urgency pop up on his screen but felix doesn't have it anywhere in him to answer any of them. 

when the gray light of morning is just visible through the blinds, felix rolls out of the bed and stuffs his things back into his school bag. it's early, he knows, but he'd rather slip out of the house while hyunjin is still asleep and get to school early than wait for hyunjin to get dressed and pack and leave with him. it takes him ten minutes to wash his face and exit through the front door, with a quick note of thanks scribbled on the refrigerator notepad and his phone in his pocket. 

his days, it seems, are all blurring into one lately. the only reason he can ever keep track of the date is because he's forced to write it on his schoolwork and the usually, he can't tell the difference between monday or friday despite the change of demeanor in the hallways. 

today, felix takes a detour. he walks around to the back of the school, where the weeds are long and growing in thickets and there's that one pipe running up the side that lets out a waterfall of collected rainwater every once in a while. felix had made the mistake of standing under it once and only once, and he'd ended up soaked and grimy the rest of the day. 

it's just as windy as yesterday, felix notices, still nipping at his cheeks and leaving him shivering in the thin hoodie he's wearing. but the plus side is no one ever walks to the back of the school, too afraid of ticks and mosquitoes and that stupid pipe that never gave warning before it started to drip. 

there's a ladder, around the back, which felix had discovered one day when he'd pushed just a little too far past the thicket of weeds. it leads up to a balcony that connects with a storage closet. it's small, just barely big enough to hold three people, and he's not sure it even counts as a balcony because all it is is a thick slab of concrete with a steel railing all the way around it. there are cigarette stubs and broken lighters and shards of glass all underneath it and there's always the faint scent of smoke layering the air, but it's far enough to pull felix from reality for a while. 

slowly, he pulls himself up the ladder, taking care of the vine that he thinks might be poison ivy but never got a chance to actually test if it was. 

he takes advantage of the fact that he's taller than average and slings his leg over the railing on the left side, pulling himself onto the balcony. 

but there's someone else sitting there. 

felix, in all the times he's brought himself up here, has never seen a single person on this balcony other than himself. after all, it isn't an ideal place to stay anyways. but there's another boy there, sitting on the railing, dangerously close to slipping off because the railing has never been the sturdiest. 

from his sideways point of view, felix can point out his features. his hair's long and blonde and tousled, probably from the gusts of wind still whooshing past every few minutes. his legs are dangling, almost carelessly, teetering on the edge like it doesn't really matter if he slips off or not. 

and there's a cigarette in between his lips. for a few minutes, felix watches the rings of smoke escape his lips as he breathes out, watches the end of the cigarette glow bright orange. 

he's wearing a sweatshirt, all black, and a pair of track pants felix is pretty sure he owns. there are beat up joggers on his feet and bracelets circling his left wrist and a slight flush on his cheeks. 

and felix has never seen him before. then again, felix hasn't looked up at half the school, since he tends to keep to himself. it had taken seungmin four months to get felix to even talk to him, and felix still isn't quite sure why hyunjin's stuck around all these years. 

"you're bleeding." 

felix startles at the sudden voice, so he doesn't quite register what the boy says. he hadn't realized how obvious he'd been. but then again, the balcony is quite tiny and he hadn't exactly been discreet in his climb up, so he shouldn't be too surprised. 

"--what?"

"you're bleeding," the boy repeats, not taking his eyes from the sky. 

felix looks down at his leg, and there's a bleeding cut right across his calf. he must've scratched it against one of the thorns in the thick of the weeds. funnily enough, he hadn't felt it. exterior pain had lost its meaning to felix a long, long time ago. 

the boy snuffs out his cigarette and drops the stub to the ground below. it explains the number of cigarette stubs down there. he swings his legs back over the other way and jump onto the concrete, landing solid on his feet and walking right through the door to the janitor's closet. he doesn't acknowledge felix after that. 

felix stands there for a good ten minutes after that, inhaling the leftover smoke still thick in the air and wondering if the sky ever cries. 

two days later finds felix standing on the soccer field, a ball between his toes and the wind still whistling in his ears. he hasn't gone home since monday. there are over a hundred messages on his phone and two hundred missed calls. half from his sisters, half from his mother, and zero from his father. he's not too surprised. 

"lee, are you gonna kick the damn thing or just stand there?" one of his teammates screams from the other side of the field. 

felix snaps out of his reverie and shoots the ball in the general direction of his teammate. it's an awful kick, and it's a wonder daehwi receives it successfully and moves towards the goal. they win the game, but felix is just numb to the cheering. it's not like he's done much anyways. as long as he hasn't caused them to fail, he's fine with standing on the side. 

"lix, we're gonna get pizza. you coming?" hyunjin jogs up to him, his eyes squinted up into crescents and his infamous grin on his lips. 

"i--i have to go home." 

"oh." hyunjin's face softens and his voice drops a few octaves until it's just nearly above a whisper. "you okay going alone?" 

felix musters up what little energy he's got left inside of him and nods, giving hyunjin as close to a smile as he can get. "i'm good, jinnie. go eat oily fatty foods and then come complain when you're all puffy in the morning tomorrow." 

hyunjin throws him a thumbs up over his shoulder as he runs off, sprinting to catch up with jeongin and daehwi. "aye-aye, captain!" he calls over his shoulder as he goes, and felix shakes his head, turning in the opposite direction. 

"hey, felix!" 

felix grits his teeth and turns around from where he's stuffing his cleats into his bag. 

"yes, coach?" 

his coach comes up and puts a hand on his shoulder. felix has to fight every urge in his body to throw his hand off. 

"felix, is, uh, is everything alright with you?" 

felix shuts his eyes hard. he'd been hoping to avoid it for the longest time, but clearly karma's against him. 

"sure." he mutters, not taking his eyes off the turf underneath his socked feet. he really should've put his sneakers on first. 

"you've been missing almost every practice. i just wanted to, you know, make sure everything's okay. at home, and stuff." 

there it is. the 'at home'. as much as felix would love to rip the man's hand off of his shoulder and scream in his face that no, everything's not alright, everything's a mess and so is he, and he's barely keeping himself alive at this point, he doesn't. he can't. 

"everything's fine, coach. i'm sorry. i'll be more careful." he shrugs his hand off and turns back to put his shoes on and tie the laces as quickly as he can. 

"if you ever need to talk--"

"i've gotta head home. i won't miss the next practices, honest." felix cuts him off and sprints off the field as fast as his sore legs will take him. 

the walk home is cold and desolate. the leaves are falling off the trees slowly and felix wishes he could still see beauty in the sight of it. but all the walk home reminds him of is the suffocating air he'll be breathing as soon as he's through his front door. maybe luck will be on his side today, and his parents will still be at work. 

when is luck ever on his side anymore? 

felix twists the doorknob and steps through the front door. and there his mother is, an expression of actual worry contorting her features and fresh red splotches lining her jawline. felix can't bear to look at his mother anymore, let alone meet her eyes. 

"felix, it's been two entire days since you came home." her voice is an octave too high to be normal, hoarse through what's most likely misuse and almost desperate. 

felix huffs out a laugh. like he doesn't know. 

"you didn't  _tell_  anyone, felix. we were  _worried_." 

felix whips around. there's rage burning somewhere deep inside him like a flame, a flame that eventually has to erupt. 

"you were  _worried_? like you've ever been worried about me before,  _eomma_." he spits the last word out like it's poison and his mother winces. yet there's no remorse left for him to feel anymore. 

"lixie, you can't just disappear--"

" _don't call me that._ " felix lashes out, painting his words red with fire and glowing with embers. 

his mother looks horrified. 

"felix, i'm your  _mother_." she whispers, one hand over her heart. 

"maybe," he says bitterly as he kicks his shoes off and drops his sports bag, "maybe you should act like one." 

tonight is no different from the other nights. the smell of alcohol radiating from his father is strong enough to travel all the way upstairs, and the drunken curses and shattered glass are nothing new. 

it's routine, felix thinks, and it's a sickening, twisted routine. but it's routine. tomorrow he'll wake up and there'll either be shards of glass on the floor or his mother standing sorrowfully in the kitchen with a blackened eye or a bruised jaw or cuts all up and down her arms. 

yet he can't find it anywhere in himself to be pitiful of her. 

the weeks keep passing by, but each one blends into the next and they're marred with the same picture every night. and every few nights, felix will take the subway home with hyunjin and stay out long and forever until he decides he's got to show his face. he makes the mistake of showing up at the same time as his father one night and he ends up with purple painting his collarbones and blue circling his wrists. 

a pity of a son, he calls him. barely even a son at all. worthless, meaningless, nothing more than a simple overnight mistake. 

"you were never supposed to enter this world,", his father had sneered into his face, whiskey sharp on his breath and hate coloring his tone. "and it would have been better if you hadn't." 

"hey," hyunjin says softly at the lunch table, prodding at felix's arm, "you alright?" 

"peachy." 

jeongin leans over, dimples poking out of his cheeks as he contorts his face into an expression of concern. 

"are you dying, hyung?" he asks incredulously, and hyunjin reaches over to slap his shoulder. seungmin dissolves into a fit of giggles and daehwi hides his own behind a series of very artificial coughs. 

"yes." felix answers very truthfully. 

that just gets more giggles out of seungmin and daehwi and pure confusion out of jeongin. it's okay, though. seungmin and daehwi and jeongin, they don't know. and he can't expect everyone to pity him either. 

so he picks his head up and reaches over to prod at the green mush on jeongin's tray with his unused fork. 

"what concoction have you conjured up today, hecate?" 

that starts enough conversation up on the table, and opens up a guessing game about just how long it's been sitting in the cafeteria for. 

when the bell rings and they have to load themselves back into their classrooms, hyunjin jogs up next to him and rubs his back tentatively. 

"do you want me to take you to the nurse?" 

and as much as felix appreciates hyunjin's concern, it makes him feel small and vulnerable. like he's trapped somewhere he doesn't want to be. like he's a creature that constantly needs attention and pity or he'll die. 

"i'm okay, hyunjin. seriously. you're gonna be late, don't follow me." 

but his head is spinning and his bones are aching, and that just reminds him that he'd promised to show up to practice. he doesn't need anyone else to look at him like he's made of glass. 

it's just today, felix reminds himself when the final bell rings, just today. today is a bad day, but tomorrow is a new day and not every day is a bad day. and maybe it's not entirely true, but it gets felix through what he needs to get through. hyunjin drops him off at the field, but he runs towards the subway early. 

"i have a dentist appointment," he explains apologetically, "but come to mine after practice. do you have your metro card?" 

felix shakes his head. 

hyunjin sighs and pulls his spare out of his back pocket. "don't lose it, yeah? eomma will wait for you if i'm not back by the time you get there." he finishes and jogs off towards the subway. 

felix gets through practice fairly smoothly. he can literally feel his coach's eyes on his back as he runs, but it only pushes him to run harder until his lungs are quite literally burning inside of him. so when the whistle is blown and they're reminded of their next game, felix up and runs as fast as possible. he's not trapping himself in the same situation as before. 

the subway station, as always, smells the same. the man who swipes the metro cards raises an eyebrow as felix holds out his. 

"didn't your friend already come by today?" he comments offhandedly as he swipes felix through. 

"yeah, i had practice." felix says, and the ticket man gives him a smile as he heads back. he drops his stuff onto the plastic benches and he knows the man will watch it for him. it's another routine of his. 

today, he heads to the convenience store alone, loose change in his pocket from his trips to the vending machine and heart heavy in his chest.

he's earlier than usual today, felix notices as he empties his loose change onto the desk in front of the cashier, or maybe it's just that hyunjin hasn't taken four hours deciding whether he wants the barbecue flavored ones or the onion flavored ones. 

he's a few pennies over, but he tells the girl to keep the change. not because he's trying to be nice, but because he's simply too tired to attempt to count out exactly how much he needs back. he steps out of the convenience store and checks the time. it's still too early to make the next bus, and he'd rather stay the least amount of time in the subway station as possible. 

so felix goes for a walk. which usually, he hates doing because walks only give his brain more of a chance to go into overrun mode, but today it's his only option. he heads around the back of the convenience store, which he's actually never done before. 

there are a few straggles here and there, some people huddling under a single coat and a few simply looking bored out of their minds. and one person leaning against the back of the convenience store with his hands shoved in his pockets and what's most likely a cigarette peeking out between his teeth. 

felix squints as he gets closer. he looks oddly familiar. maybe it's the blonde hair that's still artfully tousled or the same blank expression on his face, but felix suddenly remembers him. the balcony boy. 

he's wearing the exact same thing as he had been the first time felix had seen him, and he looks almost as careless as he did before. he's looking out at the world in front of him but at the same time he's not, like he's searching for something but he hasn't quite found it yet. 

there's a bag, though, peeking out of his sweatshirt pocket, and felix finds himself attempting to identify it as he walks considerably slower past him. it's the same bag of candy felix always buys. good taste. 

he doesn't expect the boy to catch him staring, but when he flicks his eyes up, he meets the other boy's. and he turns and runs, and his excuse is that he's probably late for the subway and he has zero intention of going back home today. he makes the subway, just nearly on time. the conductor gives him a dirty look when he runs on, dragging his bag and his sports stuff on just seconds before the door can slide shut on him completely. he just thanks his lucky stars he makes the bus and hangs on to one of the poles, declining when a man in a suit and tie offers him his plastic seat. 

both hyunjin and his mother are home when felix gets there, and mrs. hwang pulls him into a warm hug. 

"we missed you, lix." she says, and it's so obvious that she genuinely means it. it tugs at felix somewhere deep inside, something that hurts in a way it shouldn't. 

"hello, felix, it's been a while." hyunjin's father is home, as well. he grins down at felix and ruffles his hair as he walks past. 

"hyunjin, you left your cleats on the floor again!" he calls as he heads through the laundry room, "pick them up before you make me twist an ankle on them in the dark!" 

and felix realizes that hyunjin's literally got the perfect family. maybe he's an only child, but his family's not fucked up. his family loves each other, from the subtle touches they give each other to the warm jokes they crack and the constant smell of homecooked food that felix had never once experienced since he was little. 

and it hurts, somewhere between his lungs and his ribcage, somewhere deep in his veins but not quite in his bloodstream, somewhere in the back of his head but still at the temple. it hurts. 

midterms roll around soon enough, and felix's one focus is not failing. it means sleepless nights and long hours at the library, pure black coffee replacing his blood and constant bags under his eyes, but flunking high school is not an option for him anymore. 

then, he'll be living on the streets and he knows it. 

it's pouring rain one morning when felix sets out for school. he trips twice and ends up with new rips in his jeans and an unnecessary amount of scraping on his left knee, but felix barely registers it as he picks himself up and jogs the rest of the way. he's early again, and he'd rather spend anywhere than in the desolate school hallways among the few straggling people who will most definitely give him judgmental looks and the few roaming teachers who will no doubt ask him questions he doesn't have answers to. 

so even in the rain, he walks around to the back of the school. the pipe is pouring rainwater constantly today, in torrents that hit the ground and soak the bottoms of felix's shoes. the ladder isn't a great idea but he takes that route anyways. vaguely, he notices the poison ivy vine is gone. funny. he hadn't thought anybody of any importance ever came back here. 

when he gets himself all the way up the ladder, there's another silhouette standing in the rain. today, he's completely soaked. he's sitting on the balcony, pressed up against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him and his hair dripping wet and matted to his forehead. his eyes are closed and he's leaning all the way back. 

and there's a single slash across his cheek, still bleeding. and maybe it's because of the rain, but the water coming off his cheek is flushed red. 

felix opens his mouth. third time's the charm, right?

"you're the one bleeding today." 

the boy opens his eyes just slightly and lets out a puff of air through his nose. 

"you're gonna get sick if you stay out here, you know." 

the thing this, felix isn't quite sure why he's being so incessant. but something about this boy sitting in front of him is intriguing, and maybe felix just wants the solace of a conversation for once. 

"you're one to talk, ginger." the boy says this time, without opening his eyes. 

it's true. felix by now is just as soaked as the boy, and if anyone's going to get sick it's most likely both of them. 

"so how'd you get that?" felix nods towards the cut on the boy's cheek and he opens his eyes, not moving a muscle. 

"why do you care?" 

"i don't know." felix answers truthfully, because he doesn't. he genuinely has no idea why he's still trying to pick a conversation when the boy in front of him obviously isn't keen on the subject. 

he takes a seat diagonally from the boy so his back is pressed up against the railing. and maybe it's just as silent as it always is. but somehow, sharing the silence makes it a little more bearable. like maybe felix isn't the only one drowning in his thoughts. 

"myself." the boy says suddenly, and it's barely a whisper above the rain. felix furrows a brow. 

"--yourself what?" 

"i did it to myself." the boy answers, pointing to the slash on his cheek that's still somehow bleeding in the falling rain. 

and when the boy finally gets up and leaves without saying goodbye, felix kind of gets it. this boy is fucked up. 

but who is he to judge? 

felix is fucked up too. 

felix makes the mistake of going back home again. he also makes the mistake of entering the house when his father's car, with the front all bashed in and the license plate mangled beyond repair, is sitting in the driveway. 

he also makes the mistake of walking into the kitchen at exactly the wrong time. because his father whirls on him, instead of his mother, who's cowering in the corner. because that's what she is. his mother is a coward and that's all he knows. that's all he's seen her as. 

"look who's finally come home." his father comes closer, half a wine bottle in his hand, the jagged edges glinting under the kitchen bulbs. felix is well aware the potential of the wine bottle, well aware of how quickly he could be killed if he makes one wrong move. 

"tell me, boy," his father starts, and the stench of alcohol is so strong that felix has to turn away to cough, "do you deserve to live in this house?" 

his words are slurred and he's undeniably more drunken than he's supposed to be. but where's the surprise in that? 

"no. and i don't fucking want to, either." felix spits right back, and his father snarls. 

"what did you say, boy? say it louder." he slurs, and when felix doesn't respond, " _louder_!" 

the wine bottle doesn't end up jabbed inside of him that night, but it ends up leaving pictures on his right shoulder, pictures that trail droplets of red behind him when he heads towards the bathroom. his sister locks herself inside her room and refuses to come out, and his father leaves the house with screeches that remind felix of macbeth. 

felix leaves the house, that night, and walks all the way to hyunjin's house. he avoids the subway, because even there, he'll get questions. it's nearing two am when he finally reaches it and he feels guilty, but he texts hyunjin a string of messages that all end in desperate requests. 

hyunjin is at the door two seconds later and he pulls felix in for a hug. and he won't admit it, but felix knows hyunjin's shoulder is damp when he finally pulls away. 

felix stays as far away from his house as possible, taking detours and ignoring the hundreds of messages that are still coming in. there's a single one from his father when the third week rolls around, that simply reads, 'come home.' 

he rolls out of hyunjin's bed one night, and exits through the window. it's times like now that felix appreciates the fact that hyunjin's bedroom is on the first floor and not the second. 

the moon's almost glaring at him, it seems, because the night is freezing cold and the moon's glare is colder. he isn't quite sure where he's going and he's not quite sure how long he's walked over crossroads and turning points when he finally reaches a curb somewhere far from where he's supposed to be. 

and there's a silhouette on the curb, directly under the moon. 

and felix takes a chance, a break in time, to jump under the moon with him. 

"hey," felix starts softly, breaking the silence, "fancy seeing you here." 

the cut on his cheek's closed up, but it's still crimson under the moon. crimson enough that it almost glows under the moonlight. 

there's a lighter by the curb, felix notices, and four little cigarette stubs on the ground next to the boy's feet. and the smell of stale smoke that seems to follow him around everywhere. 

"i have a question." felix says, out of the blue. and even if the boy doesn't answer, felix knows he's listening. "why do you smoke? it's killing you."

it takes exactly fifty-four seconds for him to answer. 

"because killing myself is the only way to remind myself that i'm still alive." 

and it's such a straight, cut in stone answer, but it weighs so heavy in felix's mind that he almost feels like he's being crushed alive by the weight of it. crushed alive by the answer to a question that wasn't even his own. 

"what do you want from me?" the boy breathes, and felix can't answer. because he doesn't know.  

and under the moon, inhaling that same second-hand smoke, and feeling the same burn in his lungs, felix feels like maybe he understands the boy. 

"i wish i knew." felix answers softly, and the boy laughs bitterly. 

"god, you don't understand. i'm  _fucked up,_  man." 

"nice to meet you, fucked up," felix finds himself saying with the faint of a real smile on his lips, "i'm felix." 

he holds out his hand to shake, and the boy takes it with a smirk on his lips. 

"touché." 

"i think we're all a little fucked up, you know? some people just end up more fucked than others." felix comments as the stars twinkle down at the two of them. 

"dear lord, i wonder who i murdered in my previous life then." the boy says, and felix laughs. 

"so tell me, fucked up," felix starts, and the boy lets out a heavy sigh. "it's jisung." 

"there we go, that's a start. so tell me, jisung," felix continues, "does the sky cry?" 

and maybe it's because he's not alone anymore. or maybe it's because the wind isn't as bitter tonight. or maybe it's because in a weird, twisted way, maybe it's because he's found someone just like him. 

and maybe the two of them are fucked up in different ways. but, if you think about it, fucked up is fucked up. 

and they're both on the end of that scale. 

"good night, jisung." felix says as they both stand up, brushing starlight from their clothes. jisung sports his scars and felix sports his bruises, but together, maybe they aren't just so out of place. 

"yeah." jisung replies as he turns to walk in the opposite direction. but there's no cold edge to his voice, and there's no harshness behind his words. instead, they seem to warm him up. 

it's funny, in a way, that felix finds solace in a boy who's quite nearly just as fucked up as him. 

"where did you go?" hyunjin asks the next morning when felix steps back in quietly to him eating cereal on the island. 

"for a walk."

and hyunjin doesn't question it any further. and for that, felix is thankful. 

"get your ass home, you bastard." is the first thing felix hears when he picks up the phone for the first time in weeks. it's a call from his mother but his father's voice is on the phone. 

"why should i?" 

"because i'm your father and i said so, you piece of shit." 

it turns out, that even sober, felix's father is no stranger to words that cut sharper than knives. felix does go home, for fear that he'll be dead the next morning if he doesn't. he's welcomed by the slamming of a fist and a string of curses. 

"you want you should be kicked out, boy?" 

felix doesn't answer, just breathes hard against the wall, closing his eyes so hard he sees stars. 

"then where will you go? your friend won't want you either. not when he finds out what you are." 

felix slams his eyes open and looks to his mother, who's cowering against the cabinets once again. she'd promised. she'd sworn on her life she wouldn't tell anyone, but here they are anyhow. 

she refuses to meet his eyes, and his father takes his moment of silence as an attack moment. 

"that's right, boy. even he'll kick you to the curb when he finds out you're nothing but a worthless faggot." 

and despite the open wound on his torso and the bruises on his jawline, felix sprints out of the cursed house as fast as he can and slams the door behind him. he can still hear his father cursing after him, and for fear that he'll find him, felix runs faster, pushes harder, even though he knows he'll fall faint soon if he doesn't stop. 

he does. somewhere along the way to the subway, somewhere vaguely between the convenience store and the subway station, felix drops, collapses, and everything goes black. his last thought, however, is that he'll die due to his own fucking father and the thought is enough to make him feel sick. 

felix doesn't die, though. he blinks his eyes open at some point and he's somewhere new. it's not a house, no, it's still just as cold outside, and it's definitely nowhere hyunjin would've taken him. he's propped up against a wall, somewhere, in an arch--probably underneath one of the city bridges. and there's someone next to him. 

jisung. 

he's rummaging around in some old rusty toolbox and vaguely he realizes that his shirt's pulled up and the open cut on his torso is exposed. 

"stay still." 

felix watches jisung come over with what he's pretty sure is an antiseptic pad (wherever he's gotten that from) and a needle. and thread. funnily enough, it doesn't hurt and he doesn't freak out when jisung literally stabs the area around the cut with the needle and pulls the thread through. 

"what are you--" 

"it's too big to close up on its own." jisung pokes his tongue out of his mouth as he works quickly. "trust me. i've had more than enough experience." 

so when jisung ties the knot and pulls his shirt back down, felix groans and sits up completely. 

"how long was i out?" 

"few hours." 

"what time is it?"

"3." 

"pm?" 

"does it look like it's 3 pm?" 

it doesn't. it's dark outside, and cold. felix shivers. jisung throws a jacket over him and shuts the toolbox. 

"do you have somewhere to go?" he asks, and felix thinks back to hyunjin. 

hyunjin. hyunjin will probably be freaking out by now. 

"your phone's over there," jisung points to the base of a lampstand, "it's kind of cracked but it still works. i think you dropped it when you fell." 

it doesn't matter, though, because jisung retrieves his phone for him anyway. felix hits the home button and his screen lights up with text messages and missed calls, all from hyunjin. 

he sighs and calls hyunjin back. he picks up on the first ring.

_"felix oh my god i was so worried are you okay where are you do you need me to come get you holy shit you freaked me out--"_

"the bridge by the convenience store." felix cuts hyunjin off. "that's where i am. can you--"

_"i'm on my way, lix."_

and felix drops the call. 

"how'd you even find me?" 

jisung nods towards the row of apartments opposite to the subway station. 

"i live there. is someone coming for you?" 

felix nods. but he doesn't want jisung to go. something about his presence is just comforting. maybe it's the fact that he's literally saved his life, or the fact that someone is near him. yet he can't find it in himself to call after jisung when he gives felix a nod and jogs off behind the trees. 

hyunjin shows up five minutes later in his mother's jeep. he doesn't ask any questions, just helps felix up and then carries him to the car. for his sake he avoids potholes and bumps on the ride home, even though all that felix can really feel is a dull ache in his abdomen which could very well be from lack of food as well. 

"who found you?" hyunjin asks later that night, when his cut's been properly cleaned and looked at by a doctor and re-stitched. "whoever stitched your cut did a good job of it." 

"a--boy." that's all jisung is to him anyways, right? there's nothing more than that. 

one thing felix has always liked about hyunjin is that he's never asked too many questions. and he doesn't now, either, simply sits by felix and rubs his arm gently as a sign of comfort. 

it takes felix two weeks to get himself back to school and another week to catch up with everything he's missed. he stops showing up to soccer practices completely, and it's not like he can play maimed anyways. 

seungmin, daehwi, and jeongin bombard him with questions when he finally shows up at the lunch table again, and hyunjin answers all of them for felix, calmly deflecting the truth of the matter the entire time. when they've settled down, felix gives them all a tight smile. 

"i'm fine, guys. seriously." and maybe he's getting there, but he's far from it now. it's a lie. it's always been a lie. 

"hyunjin," felix says seriously one day when they're walking to the convenience store, "what would you say if i told you i was gay?" 

hyunjin doesn't stop, or choke on his water, or even give felix a weird look.  

"i'd say good for you." hyunjin picks up a packet of dried squid and one of dried octopus. "which one?" 

felix gapes. 

"seriously?" 

hyunjin rolls his eyes. 

"so? it's not a big deal. hurry up, which one?" he holds up both packets impatiently and felix feels himself grow a little warmer for the first time ever. 

"squid." 

and hyunjin throws back the octopus, links arms with felix, and walks to the front counter. 

"you being gay doesn't change you, felix," hyunjin says as they get in line, "and it never will. you're still felix. and i love you." 

felix lets out a jittery sigh and leans into hyunjin for a minute. 

"i don't deserve you." 

"hey." hyunjin says sharply, flicking felix's shoulder, "you absolutely deserve me. it's your turn." 

maybe it's karma, or a turn of events, or the stars aligning or something. but jisung stands behind the counter, the scar on his cheek still very prominent and a set of bandages on his left wrist. 

"jisung?" 

jisung gives felix a nod and takes hyunjin's packet of dry squid, scanning it. 

"you have 2500 won left on your coupon. you want to use it?" 

hyunjin nods and scrambles for the rest of the change in his pocket, and jisung flicks his eyes to felix. 

"you okay?" he asks, and felix gives him a small smile. 

"as okay as i can get, sure. what happened to your wrist?" 

jisung gives him a bitter smile, one that reminds him so much of the first time he'd talked to jisung. 

" _i_  happened to my wrist." 

he takes hyunjin's handful of loose change and ignores the look on his face, handing back the few coins he's gone over. felix reaches out to tap jisung's shoulder softly. 

"are  _you_  okay, jisung?" felix asks quietly. 

"no." jisung pushes the money drawer shut. "but when have i ever been?" 

and then hyunjin is dragging felix out of the shop, chattering on about how they're gonna miss the subway and he's not waiting for the next one to come because it's a whole half hour later and he's not just gonna aimlessly wander around for no reason. 

"felix," mrs. hwang breathes when he steps through the door, "you're alright." 

and she hugs felix tightly, and it's times like now felix feels like crying because he's never felt actual concern from his own mother. his mother, felix thinks bitterly, is nothing more than a selfish coward. and she never will be anything more than it.  

kkami yips excitedly as he comes running into the room and pounces up on felix, trying to lick his face and bite his fingers and wriggle all over him all at once and hyunjin laughs. 

"he's more excited to see you than he is to see me--that's not even fair, lix. you can't steal my dog. give me my puppy back." 

hyunjin's mother bursts out laughing when kkami just jumps straight out of hyunjin's arms back into felix's. 

but while maybe he's okay for a while, felix can't help but feel worried for jisung. because he'd seemed all too sincere when he'd said that he wasn't okay. and sure, maybe felix isn't all the way okay either. maybe he's just as fucked up as jisung. but he's never had to worry for someone fucked up before. all anyone ever did was worry for fucked up himself. 

he slips out the window again a couple of nights later, and takes the same path he did before. it's drizzling slightly, that stage where it's not quite raining but it's not quite not raining either, so the droplets spread out like a spiderweb on his hair and coat his fingers for a split second before melting away. 

felix doesn't really remember the path he'd taken, so he lets his feet guide the way. strangely enough, following his heart brings him to the same moonlit curb. and the same figure curled up on the moonlit curb. 

"hey." felix sits next to jisung. 

and jisung looks up and scrubs at his cheeks quickly. felix doesn't miss the tears spilling onto them, though, and he wonders if that's how ethereal he looks when he cries. 

he puts an arm around jisung and rubs his back. he's not sure if he's close enough to jisung to comfort him, but he'll do it anyways. after all, jisung did literally sew him back together. 

"don't cry too much. otherwise the tears are gonna freeze on your cheeks and you'll get frostbite." 

jisung snorts, even through his tears, at felix's lame attempt at lightening the mood. 

"frostbite doesn't sound so bad." 

"it'll look bad, though. your cheeks will go black and purple and fall off." felix says completely seriously. 

they don't talk much, but jisung stops crying eventually and soon enough, they end up leaning into each other. felix ignores the fact that fresh cigarette stubs line the ground and jisung's lighter still sits by him and holds jisung close. 

maybe being fucked up isn't so bad if you've got another fucked up person with you. 

"felix, seriously? the question is literally a math problem, how could the answer be  _purple_?" seungmin groans at the lunch table, erasing felix's answer and doing the problem for him correctly. 

felix shrugs. he's only half-listening. today, today is not a good day. it's almost like he's been hollowed out inside and left empty to suffer on his own. and while hyunjin's touch is comfort, it's not enough. 

his mother had showed up at the hwang's door yesterday, pleading for her son back. the bags under her eyes were barely concealed and her voice had been pitched and desperate. felix hadn't felt the least bit guilty when he'd showed up and told hyunjin's mother to close the door. later that night, hyunjin's father had told him that he wouldn't have let him go back even if he'd wanted to. 

"can--you sign me out?" felix whispers into hyunjin's ear, and hyunjin pulls back with a worried glance. but he nods, lifting him from the lunch table and leaving seungmin with his papers. 

the secretary gives them both an unimpressed look but she hands felix a green slip and tells him to feel better with zero enthusiasm behind her voice (hyunjin had made up a very elaborate lie including the flu). hyunjin gives him a hug and tells him he'll meet him at home, tugging him in for another one a final time before turning around and heading back for his class before the late bell rings. 

the back of the school doesn't seem the least bit enticing, and so felix kicks a rock along the sidewalk as he heads for the subway station. well, not the subway exactly, but the convenience store. a second home. 

the door chimes jingle merrily when felix walks in and an unfamiliar boy looks up from behind the counter. felix checks behind the store just to make sure his assumptions are correct and heads for the candy aisle, locating what he needs quickly enough and checking out the item. he walks around to the back of the store from the outside and sure enough, jisung is huddled up against the wall, yet another cigarette clasped between his lips. 

"skipping again?" felix asks. it's more of a rhetorical question because obviously, since jisung is here and not in class, but jisung nods faintly anyways. 

there's a look in his eyes, one that reminds felix so much of himself that it hurts. like he's looking at something but he's not at the same time, like jisung's brain is whirring overtime but it's shutting down at the same time. he knows the feeling all too well. it's a bad day for both of them.

felix kneels in front of jisung and pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, tossing it somewhere over his shoulder. jisung gives him a quizzical look, playing with the lighter in his hands. 

felix opens the packet of candy he's just purchased and unwraps a lollipop, replacing the cigarette with it. green apple. 

"what are you doing?" jisung speaks around the lollipop, and felix shrugs, tying up the bag of lollipops and shoving them into jisung's pocket for good measure. 

"you said you smoke because it's killing you, right?" felix plays with his shoelace and swallows, hard. "well, maybe i don't want you to die." 

and jisung smiles exasperatedly around his lollipop, but he doesn't take it out of his mouth. and when he moves his arm, felix can see the cuts on the insides of his wrists, some old, some new, and he already knows there are thousands of other ways jisung could die. 

but it's a start. 

because it takes a fucked up person to know how to fix another fucked up person, even if it's in the smallest way possible. 

"green apple sucks." jisung comments. 

and it's the only thing he says, but felix gets it. jisung will try. and if jisung can try, so can felix. 

and that night, when felix finally sees hyunjin at home, some part of him feels like it's been returned. 

"are you feeling better?" 

and felix doesn't completely have to lie. 

"i think so." it's not a lie. and hyunjin grins and pulls him into a hug and tells him to shower first, and felix smiles. 

and it's hard to tell at first, but jisung is trying. the cut on his cheek heals up, but felix can always see new ones either littering his fingers or covered by his sleeves. but whenever he passes jisung now, there's almost always a lollipop in his mouth, and felix knows that he's trying. 

it's a day when the sun's just barely warming up the winter that felix walks over to the old bridge arching over the stream and finds jisung sitting on the edge of it with a lit cigarette in his lips. 

felix jumps up onto the bridge with jisung and sits by him, dangling his legs. 

"green apple was the only flavor left." 

and it's jisung's way of saying he's sorry. all felix does is reach over and pull the cigarette from jisung's teeth, and reach into his pocket and pull out a strawberry cough drop. 

"it'll hold until i can buy you more." he says softly, and jisung sighs heavily. he's trying. 

and deep inside, felix is too. he's trying to forget. every one in a while, it'll work. 

he'll forget and he'll actually be okay for a while, and then he'll remember and everything will swirl down the drain again. the thing is, jisung is good at telling when the plug is being pulled. and he's found his own way of helping. 

the first time he finds felix staring off into space in the library, he sits by him and takes the cherry lollipop out of his mouth. 

"did you know," he says softly, "that ants don't have lungs?" 

and felix snaps out of his reverie for a minute. 

"what?" 

"ants breathe through tiny little holes all over their body, because they don't have lungs." 

strangely enough, it works. 

but maybe it isn't so strange. 

because it takes a fucked up person to know how to fix another fucked up person, even if it's in the smallest way possible. 

it's one night, on the moonlit curb, that they're sitting together, and there's yet another lollipop resting in between jisung's lips. the smell of smoke hanging around him seems to have dissipated, and felix is proud, somewhere deep inside of him. 

it's as the wind blows past and it starts to pinprick his cheeks again that felix finds a sudden surge of bravery in him. he reaches forward and pulls jisung's lollipop out of his mouth. 

and before jisung can ask him what he's doing, he moves forward and kisses jisung. 

it's a quick peck, but he does it, and jisung pulls back immediately. 

"lix, what--" 

"are you okay with this?" felix asks quickly, and jisung nods, then shakes his head, then nods again. the lollipop lays long forgotten on the concrete, shining under the moon. 

"i--no, we can't, we can't do this, this isn't--" 

"why not, sung?" 

jisung gestures wildly, panic clear in his movements. 

"look how  _fucked up_  both of us are, lix! two fucked up people can't be together. we'll only fuck ourselves up more. we'll only fuck  _each other_  up more." 

"or," felix says incredulously, "or maybe our two fucked ups can cancel each other out." 

"that's not how it  _works_ , lix!" 

"but we can try." felix whispers, and jisung bites his lip. 

"we can try. and maybe in some weird, unnatural way, my fucked up and your fucked up will clash and cancel out, and we can fix each other." 

"and we'll only know if we try." felix finishes softly. 

jisung lets go of his lip and closes his eyes, tilting his face up to the stars. 

"we can try." he repeats quietly. 

and felix comes forward and kisses him again, and all he can taste is the strawberry lollipop on jisung's lips, but it's okay because they're trying. 

and who knows?

maybe in some weird, unnatural, twisted way, felix's fucked up and jisung's fucked up will clash and cancel out. 

and maybe felix and jisung will fix each other. 

**Author's Note:**

> so what i did was basically  
> i know i deleted this but  
> i know it was a little messed up so i rewrote one of the scenes and i fixed some typos and this still isn't one of my best works but that's alright and i'll put it back up.  
> comments are really motivating so if you did enjoy please let me know--i'm sorry i deleted this, but i wasn't happy with it so re-uploaded.  
> thanks :)


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